I loved every single bit about this short film. I mean, of course, the first reason to why I agreed working on it was because of Zet. She’s a good friend of mine and I trusted that she had a vision ready, a vision I can work with. Once I saw the film, it wasn’t a complete giveaway, that’s why I loved it more. I’m a sucker for extra-ordinary things, which definitely includes plots that deviate from the standard rise and fall. This short film reminded me of Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express a little bit, because of its play with two male characters and their strange natural similarities. And as for Zet, I’ve always loved her colors and cinematography. This film is fond of dramatic shots and sceneries, which I really loved. You see two sides of the world in the eyes of two people.

Having all this in mind, I challenged myself in writing the score for it. I veered away from my standard half-step down style of writing and went to a more distinct sound. I used the two-guitar American Football/Owen style of playing, even incorporating their odd tuning. The thing I love the most about AF songs is its ability to sound happy even though the lyrics are sad. I’m not a lyricist (at least not in Bones Like Snowflakes), so I had to be expressive for Woke Up New one way or another. The challenge was to confuse an emotionally focused tuning and guitar sound actually make it colorful, and make it all come naturally. I could only hope that it all fell into place, and now that it’s all over, I think it did.

Haha, so here’s a YouTube playlist I made that consists of the top 10 performances I watched when I was in high school, courtesy of Punk Rock Vids.com. If you’ll notice, they’re mostly network television debuts of the bands, so it was cool how indie artists were actually paid attention at that time. List as follows:

Weather in California’s been nice, but today I woke up to the sound of rain drops and a gloomy sky. So I took on the wonderful opportunity and made a playlist. These are ten songs that will keep you company for bed weather.